Calling all the lines of professional tennis

Going For The Repeat

Sam Stosur is the first player through to the semis here in Stuttgart, with a 2-6 6-3 7-6(3) victory over Vera Zvonareva.

I don’t even know where to start, so I’m just going to start with the most ridiculous fact. VERA MANAGED TO BREAK 9 (NINE!) STRINGS in this match. It was just so weird. We saw her break 4-6 back in the US Open semi against Wozniacki, and it came back here again. Back then, she really held her nerve and didn’t let it bother her too much, and it seemed like she would do the same here, until the impossible happened.

The impossible being that she managed to break every single racket in her bag, forcing her to play with her coach’s babolat racket while she waited for the stringers to do there thing. That’s really when she broke and went from dominating off the ground to spraying errors and losing three games in a row from a set and 3-3.

More weird was to come as both began to serve well and the match quickly became akin to a hardcourt match. They literally one-two punched up until the tiebreak. And while Vera was returning exceptionally well before, that quickly went out of the window in the third set.

She left the court in tears, and it goes without saying that something has to change. Whether it be the rackets, the design or the actual racket sponsor. Frankly, I hope it’s the latter.

But full credit must go to Sam. She was smart enough to reign in her game when the errors flowed drom Zvonareva and began to play very well in the third set, playing the clutch points particularly well and powering through the tiebreak. It’s definitely good to see her back in the mix. She called it her “best match of the year”, and I can’t argue with that.

Oh, and the match finished at 5pm with three matches to go. So, yeah, it’s going to be a long one tonight.